Recommend Your Refrigerator

[Melanie11]

Our fridge died last week. I'm usually a major researcher before making a big purchase but unfortunately I don't have much time. Living out of a cooler is getting old!

I thought I wanted a bottom freezer but it looks like the freezer part might be alittle too small for me so I'm thinking a side by side would be better.

Any recs on brands or opinions would be great!

 

[Ble_PE]

We have a bottom freezer and love it. I like having the full width for both the fridge and the freezer, instead of the side-by-side. The one complaint that I have is you don't seem to have as much vertical storage space in the fridge because of how the shelves are laid out. So we can only put tall bottles or milk in the door.

 

[FLBuff PE]

Our fridge died last week. I'm usually a major researcher before making a big purchase but unfortunately I don't have much time. Living out of a cooler is getting old!
I thought I wanted a bottom freezer but it looks like the freezer part might be alittle too small for me so I'm thinking a side by side would be better.

Any recs on brands or opinions would be great!

This happened to us last year on New Years. We replaced our old side by side with a newer side by side. The wife didn't like the bottom freezer idea for the same reason. I talked her into a Whirlpool, with the ice maker bin on the freezer door. She was sceptical of this option at first (it cost about $200 more), but the added space is HUGE. We got ours at Lowes (free delivery, haul away of the old one). Our new fridge also has a filter in it. I believe this is Whirlpool's Model #: ED5LHAXWQ

 

[Slugger926]

Be sure to look at the Ice Maker and filtered water dispenser. Many of the ones with the drawer at the bottom do not have water and ice in the door, which is a pain to open up to get to.

 

[TouchDown]

We got a bottom freezer with the ice in the door. It does give us more "useable" refrigerator space, and you can fit larger items into it, so we do like it over our old replaced side by side.

The freezer itself is a little less usable - we keep very little in it, but just outside our kitchen in the garage we have a large upright freezer we store most everything in - so it's like 15 steps from the kitchen and easier to access when you unload freezer items from the car.

I still like the bottom freezer, but like others said, if it doesn't have ice in the door - that was a BIG deal for my wife and I, I don't think we would have bought one without that.

 

[csb]

We've got a bottom freezer with french door fridge. We really like it, but sometimes the freezer can be a PITA. If the drawer is really full, it's heavy. However, we also have a chest freezer, so we don't keep the fridge one loaded. It's a GE and we've really liked it.

 

[frazil]

At a house we rented there was a fridge with a bottom freezer - probably a pretty cheap model. I thought the bottom freezer was the biggest pain in the ass. It was hard to organize, and it has a wire mesh bottom so the freezer frost would fall out onto the kitchen floor every time you opened it, then melt and leave a puddle. I would not recommend the wire mesh bottom!

 

[Dexman1349]

We're also looking at upgrading our fridge, and we are looking almost exclusively at the bottom freezer with the french door fridge. The freezer space would basically be reserved for regular use items (popsicles, ice cream, pizza, vegies) because we have a decent sized chest freezer in the garage. The large bottle isn't an issue for us because we also have a beer fridge in the garage. We took about 1/2 of the shelves out to accomodate things like 12 packs (soda & beer), wine bottles, 2-liter bottles.

IMO if you go with a bottom freezer, you should also consider a chest freezer. Most aren't very big, but provide a surprising amount of storage. They are great for turkeys, pizza (because frozen pizzas don't fit in side by sides), and large supplies of meat (I hunt and need a place to store about a year's worth of meat).

 

[MonteBiker]

Our side by side is about the biggest pain around. Storage is a huge issue as a standard frozen pizza will not fit in it. My wife and I have talked about getting a bottom freezer in the event that ours dies...

 

[FLBuff PE]

Our side by side is about the biggest pain around. Storage is a huge issue as a standard frozen pizza will not fit in it. My wife and I have talked about getting a bottom freezer in the event that ours dies...

I can arrange that...

 

[Capt Worley PE]

I grew up with a bottom freezer and it was a royal PITA. Don't care for side by sides at all either because of the size issues (think large pizza boxes).

I'm an old school freezer on top guy.

 

[MA_PE]

we replaced ours a few years ago. We have an older 1960's house so the kitchen "blockout" for the fridge was smaller than the size of most newer "standard" refrigeators. I measured out adn we bought a bottom freezer, but when we actually put it in plcae it really didn't fit well at all. (stuck out from counters/cabinets and was shoe-horned width-wise). We ended up replacing what we had originally (typical old-school top freezer). Shelf height is easliy adjustable with a hand crack mechanism and an added bonus comapred to the original is a light in the freezer as well as in the frig part. I never cared for side by side and wouldn't consider buying one.

 

[Master slacker]

We have a (I think) Whirlpool side-by-side combo. We looked at them all when we bought our house, but decided on the sbs because of many reasons, the top one being the water / ice dispenser being right there (crushed and cubed). Wifey-wife is an ice fiend and can't have anything in a glass without it. And now that she's ultra preggo, I know I would be a dead man if the ice dispenser were in a lower compartment.

 

[roadwreck]

We have a bottom freezer style fridge. It's been alright. I can see their are certainly advantages to having the flexibility of space. Large items can be fit in pretty easily. It's also handy to have the fridge up top at eye level since it is accessed more often then the freezer. My biggest complaint with the model we have is that the design of the ice maker is a pain in the a$$. At some point the on/off arm for the ice maker broke. The thin piece of plastic that held it in place broke b/c the ice maker itself remains stationary in the freezer, but the bucket that holds the ice cubes slides in and out. One time the icemaker must have been over filled, and the on/off arm must have gotten stuck in the ice bucket. When the drawer was pulled out the arm snapped off. The piece of plastic did really do a whole lot except keep the arm in place, so it can be slotted back in to the ice maker and everything works fine. But now and the arm will fall out and it's a headache to reach back in there to put it all back together again. I have to pull out the top drawer in the freezer and then halfway crawl into the freezer to reach it. If I were a contortionist it would make this task much much easier. Other then that I have no complaints. The fridge keeps my beer cold and the freezer keeps my ice cream frozen.

My wife (and many other women or weakling men that come over) sometimes complain that the freezer can be hard to open. Our freezer has two drawers, the bottom drawer is attached to the door so it slides out with the door. This can make the door heavy making it difficult to open and close. I have to remember to make sure the door is all the way closed if we've had guests over b/c sometimes they don't close it all the way and the door can't swing shut like it does on many models.

If you get an on bottom freezer model buying one with an automatic ice maker is a must IMO. Ice cube trays wouldn't work well in a freezer where you have to slide the contents back and forth anytime you want to access them.

 

[Melanie11]

This happened to us last year on New Years. We replaced our old side by side with a newer side by side. The wife didn't like the bottom freezer idea for the same reason. I talked her into a Whirlpool, with the ice maker bin on the freezer door. She was sceptical of this option at first (it cost about $200 more), but the added space is HUGE. We got ours at Lowes (free delivery, haul away of the old one). Our new fridge also has a filter in it. I believe this is Whirlpool's Model #: ED5LHAXWQ

We ended up getting a Whirlpool side by side at Lowes last night. We got the one with the icemaker on the door which I really wanted for the same reason you did. They only had the floor model left so we got 20% off which is what made us decide to do this instead of a Kenmore from Sears. Plus Lowe's has better customer service after the sale if there are any problems (so I've heard) and they have free delivery and haul away which Sears doesn't.

They are delivering this morning!

No more tailgating in the kitchen arty-smiley-048:

 

[Kephart P.E.]

We ended up getting a Whirlpool side by side at Lowes last night. We got the one with the icemaker on the door which I really wanted for the same reason you did. They only had the floor model left so we got 20% off which is what made us decide to do this instead of a Kenmore from Sears. Plus Lowe's has better customer service after the sale if there are any problems (so I've heard) and they have free delivery and haul away which Sears doesn't.
They are delivering this morning!

No more tailgating in the kitchen arty-smiley-048:

Hey I think I bought the same thing about 1.5 years ago at Lowes too. I really like the cold water and ice. I don't know how I lived without it for all those years. You will really be loving it in the summer.

In the last few years Lowe's has moved light years beyond Home Depot in the customer service department. Acutally I think Lowes has just held their ground and HD has just gotten really crappy. I have both within 5 miles. I ofter start at one and work over to the other store if I can't find just what I want. HD always seems todisappoint in customer service, the store is always messier, the workers non-existent or clueless each time Lowe's has come out ahead.

Perfect example, couple months ago buying new door casing. Head to HD on a Sat morning. The section is a remarkable mess. Found the casing I wanted, but could locate enough to do the entire door. Hunted all thru the section but none of it was organized -it looked like someone had just throw all the various widths into the racks with little care to see that it was organized.

So I head to Lowe's and their trim/casing/molding section was perfectly organized took me 3 min. to find what I wanted.

 

[snickerd3]

I'm an old school freezer on top guy.

ditto. we looked at all the different styles when we moved into this house and ended up with the old school type.

 

[Melanie11]

Hey I think I bought the same thing about 1.5 years ago at Lowes too. I really like the cold water and ice. I don't know how I lived without it for all those years. You will really be loving it in the summer.
In the last few years Lowe's has moved light years beyond Home Depot in the customer service department. Acutally I think Lowes has just held their ground and HD has just gotten really crappy. I have both within 5 miles. I ofter start at one and work over to the other store if I can't find just what I want. HD always seems todisappoint in customer service, the store is always messier, the workers non-existent or clueless each time Lowe's has come out ahead.

Perfect example, couple months ago buying new door casing. Head to HD on a Sat morning. The section is a remarkable mess. Found the casing I wanted, but could locate enough to do the entire door. Hunted all thru the section but none of it was organized -it looked like someone had just throw all the various widths into the racks with little care to see that it was organized.

So I head to Lowe's and their trim/casing/molding section was perfectly organized took me 3 min. to find what I wanted.

Yeah we have never had water and ice in the door so I am sure it will be another thing that I don't know how I lived without. We also have both HD and Lowes within 5 miles and I have found the same thing you have with Lowes.

The guy we dealt with was really knowledgeable and even their clearance section was organized. Plus we had to get a new water pipe for the fridge since our old one was copper and probably about to break and he walked us right to where it was and showed us what we needed.

Our delivery time for the fridge was between 10 and 12 this morning and they were there right at 10 so that was nice too!

 

[DVINNY]

We ended up getting a Whirlpool side by side at Lowes last night. We got the one with the icemaker on the door which I really wanted for the same reason you did. They only had the floor model left so we got 20% off which is what made us decide to do this instead of a Kenmore from Sears. Plus Lowe's has better customer service after the sale if there are any problems (so I've heard) and they have free delivery and haul away which Sears doesn't.
They are delivering this morning!

No more tailgating in the kitchen arty-smiley-048:

Ours got delivered yesterday. I got the Whirlpool side by side with water/ice in the door, Fridgidare Microhood, Fridgidare Gas Range, Fridgidare Dishwasher.

All Stainless Steel. I spent all evening/night installing everything.

 

[Supe]

Ours got delivered yesterday. I got the Whirlpool side by side with water/ice in the door, Fridgidare Microhood, Fridgidare Gas Range, Fridgidare Dishwasher.
All Stainless Steel. I spent all evening/night installing everything.

If you take out the top three shelves, you can usually fit the longer limbs in the freezer.